The issue of homosexual marriage is unnatural and wrong for many reasons. Aside from the religious issues, there are valid secular concerns over homosexuality. Same-sex marriage is perhaps the most significant aspect of it that we as a society need to stop. Gay marriage can harm children, violates the natural order of the body and reproduction, all while promoting promiscuity; and is primarily employed by (in a secular sense) immoral people.

1: Homosexual marriage harms children, the virtue of marriage, and how children see the world.

One of the most important reasons why gay marriage is harmful and should not be accepted is the sanctity of marriage. While marriage need not be a religious issue here, the stability behind it is essential. Doctor Hansen, a phd-wielding psychologist argues that If one publicly and legally acknowledges the discrimination behind gay marriage, then they would also have to acknowledge it behind other violations of traditional marriage, like polygamy and polyamory in relationships. The damages to the raising of children with these changes and switch ups in marriage just because humans want to explore alternative sexual lifestyles should not be allowed, and could even be "disastrous" to the children"s psyches (Hansen).

In addition to how the social standing of marriage affects children, there are more sinister effects of gay marriage. Many gay couples wish to adopt children, yet many people do not realize the mistake this is. Doctor Hansen posts several good reasons why same-sex marriage is harmful for children on her article on truenews.org. While not all gays and lesbians seeking marriage wish for children, enough of them do that the issue of marriage and children for them should be considered. In the article, the psychologist states that children need love, which one can argue homosexuals can provide; however, in reality, they need more than just love. When it comes to the amount of love garnered by men and women to give to children, they may be equal. But in terms of what a child needs in order to have a healthy childhood, they are inherently unequal. The difference in gender provides for a difference in relationship that homosexuals cannot give. Men express relationships with limitations and expectations, whereas the unconditional love of a woman mother provides the balance that these two types of relationship require for a healthy growing up. Secondly, the doctor states that children need a different sex guardian at different points. For example, babies do better with mothers, whereas growing males require a father to obtain their own "masculine" identity. Hansen also argues that homosexuality will cause many children to be confused about their own sexuality, thereby complicating their own growing up process and harming them (Hansen).

The harm that gay marriage provides to children is immeasurable. It is extreme, and is something that can seriously harm them as they grow, with questions about what is right and what certain people doing posing serious threats to their psyches and minds. Those issues do not just affect children adopted by gays, it affects all standing children in society.

2: Homosexuality is not normal; homosexuality promotes promiscuity

There is no definitive facts about whether or not human beings are "born" or "made" to be homosexual. The process is further complicated by the fact that for every gay person that claims to be born that way, another says they have chosen that lifestyles. My psychology professor has even stated that human sexuality CANNOT be determined until after the onset of puberty; regardless, the amount of pre-pubescent primary school-goers that adhere to homosexuality is astonishingly high. Also astonishing is that children raised by gay parents are 4 to 10 more times likely to be gay (Hansen 2nd article). Why is this? Because they see it as something accepted and will often claim it as the push from many of society"s voices are more aggressive and overreaching than one would hope; almost as if they push too hard. As if they push to be better, and not equal. They don"t want to respect other people"s opinions that homosexuality is wrong. Even if people don"t teach aggression towards it, many in the gay community oppose all those beliefs that go against what they want. The fact is, homosexuality is not normal, and is unnatural. It harms the development of children and creates promiscuous behavior. In a 1978 study, findings reported that: "75 percent of self-identified, white, gay men admitted to having sex with more than 100 different males in their lifetime: 15 percent claimed 100-249 sex partners; 17 percent claimed 250- 499; 15 percent claimed 500-999; and 28 percent claimed more than 1,000 lifetime male sex partners". On another note, the faithfulness of gays is much less than that of straight couples. The same study reported that 75% of men and 85% of women had remained faithful, whereas only a shocking 4.5% of gay men had reported faithfulness (Slick). Obviously, something is up here. I believe it is because homoesexiality is a perversion; it encourages promiscuous behavior, which of course spreads disease, such as the AIDS epidemic.

3: It has never worked before:

Homosexuality has been tried before. Do not try to justify to me that it is a new, "enlightened" and justified concept of peace, harmony and love. That is utter nonsense. It was tried in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient China, and many other places. Haven"t you ever wonderred why it didn"t last??? Or maybe you don"t know your history, but the countries like Rome and Greece that had homosexuality were as promiscuous as the sun was hot. They had public bathhouses for people to meet and have sex with. People want to accept it because they don"t want to believe in a religion that forbids it, they don"t want to discriminate, because we, as a society have made the claim that all discrimination is bad. We also are more open to newer ideals. Those all add up to an increased willingness to accept the bad. It is immoral, whether you are religious or not, because it creates a debauchery-infused sexual society, and it harms the upbringing of children.

Thank you for accepting! In this debate, you have the burden of proof. Thus, I can only refute your points.

1) The "sanctity of marriage" argument: Marriage is a social and cultural construct that can change over ages. For instance, marriage used to be a legal method by which to make a woman a man's property, but now it is a legal union between romantic partners for shared legal benefits.

What is explicitly wrong with polygamy, anyway? This seems to be an appeal to tradition: because something is the long-standing norm, it must be right and cannot be changed.

Plus, you seem to be using the "slippery slope" fallacy--you said that if we allow A (gay marriage) to happen, then Z (polygamy) will eventually happen too, therefore gay marriage should not happen.

The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear.

2) "Should not be allowed"? "Disastrous"? Could you give objective claims proving how these descriptions apply to gay marriage?

3) Even if the parenting provided by gay parents isn't the same, that doesn't infringe on the rights of the parents to get married. Poor people and people with personality disorders, for instance, raise children who end up worse off in life, yet they can still legally marry. Marriage and kids need not be lumped in together--40.7 percent of children born last year were born out of wedlock[1], not to mention all the child-free couples.

4) Gay marriage isn't forcing anyone to be gay. You keep repeating that gay marriage will make children believe it is okay to be gay, but never state why such thinking is bad or harmful. Besides, gay people already exist.This argument simply regards whether they should be able to marry for legal benefits.

5) Please do not use the "appeal to authority" fallacy. Your claims need objective proof, not opinionated statements, no matter how qualified the person saying it. "Because So-and-So said so" is not a valid argument. Again, I need objective proof.

6) Even if there's no science about whether people are "born" homosexual, why should it matter? This argument simply regards whether they should be able to marry for legal benefits.

7) Where is the proof that the gay folks raised by gay parents are only gay simply because they're told it's right? This is the "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy: claiming two events that happen together must have a cause-effect relationship. Even if that isthe cause, how does that have any bearing on whether gay couples can marry?

8) Even if the gay acceptance movement can be quite aggressive at times (which I do agree with), that has no bearing on whether gay couples can marry.

9) You keep saying "not normal" and "unnatural," still with no substantiated reasons why that is bad. Marrying someone who is several decades older is not considered normal in our society, yet they can still marry.

As for unnatural, I assume you mean man-made (the accepted meaning of unnatural), which homosexuality is absolutely not. In fact, 1,500 species other than humans exhibit homosexuality. (Oddly, no one speculates on what factors influenced them to be homosexual, yet such questioning is applied to humans. This is a result of societal standards, not biology.)

10) I'm not sure why you believe homosexuality "creates" promiscuous behavior. Even so, I'm assuming these studies came from adults, not children, thus why children aren't being harmed.

Even with such behavior, there is no proof of why having sex with plenty of people is inherently bad. The only harms come when it is done unsafely--which is unfortunately a problem. The HIV/AIDS epidemic results from lots of male-on-male sex without protection ("Why protect if we can't get pregnant?" seems to be the logic of a lot of gay people.) THATis the harm that needs to be addressed, not gay marriage in itself.

11) Sure, some immoral things came with homosexuality in several cultures. I'm aware of this. But those aren't a result of homosexuality. They are a result of people throwing away concepts of "right" or "wrong."

Our society still has concepts of "right" and "wrong," on the other hand. Allowing gay marriage isn't a sign of not caring about these rules. The whole movement is a statement of, "Hey, why is this even 'wrong' in the first place?"

Do not use the slippery slope fallacy on me. The harms of other, unrelated deeds (pedophilia, for instance--which actually directly harms people unlike homosexuality and polygamy) are still evident to people in our society, and allowing gay marriage won't necessarily change that. Unfortunately, this seems to be a favorite argument of gay marriage opponents, hence why I'm addressing it beforehand.

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A lot of your arguments are attacking homosexuality, rather than allowing gay people to marry for shared legal benefits. Gay people already exist. This argument is simply on whether they should be allowed to marry.

First off I would like to say that I am well aware the argument was of the legalization of gay marriage; I was simply arguing that it should not be allowed based on the fact that it is harmful to children. Second off, I was certainly not afraid to be wrong by using this "slippery slope fallacy". I will have you know that in life, when one societal barrier is thrown away, it is a natural order for another to be eliminated. This has and always will happen. Do you think if Mortal Combat had not introduced massive violence into video games, we would have such a rapid increase in violent video games (e.g., gta?). You seem to like to point out what you call fallacies, simply due to the fact that you are trying to impede me by making me feel vulnerable and weak. I did not say what another person said is fact. I gave those reasons because they were in accordance with mine, and the use of a high-educated official is socially acceptable for making a point. The psychologist, specializing in marriage and children, gave her viewpoint of why gay marriage would negatively affect children. I used that in my argument because it supported my idea that gay marriage"s main flaw is that it negatively affects children. It does so through the reasons I listed, as well as creating a promiscuous society. Why is promiscuity wrong? You say it is not bad, if done safely. That clearly shows a lack of thought. Promiscuity does lead to disease, and some diseases like AIDS can be prevented, but the majority of STDs are spread orally too. There is not protection from kissing, alright?

I affirm my belief that gay marriage is harmful to children. Children need stability to grow properly; it has been proven many times that divorce is oftentimes harmful due to its instability. Having a mix of gay marriage and other types of marriage would be a confusing place for children to grow up, a large reason for this is because society will never fully allow those to take place, so the children will be in unstable positions, which will harm them. Gay marriage, as I have said, does not only affect children raised by gay couples, the institution itself affects children. The "disastrous" was a quote from the article, and was just a reinforcement of how the up-and-down confusion would negatively affect the children"s growth. Promiscuity is wrong, it DOES create a widespread use of disease. As the study said, more gay men are widespread sexually active than most straight people. I don"t care if they use a condom, that will STILL spread disease, it is only naive to assume it won"t. The instability is harmful for children. These two things do not go together to create anything good. Why should we allow this lifestyle to take hold with marriage--which is to say to all growing in society, "this is how it is; you have to accept this now, no matter what you think"--which would have such a bad effect, when it is all for a promiscuous lifestyle. If marriage is accepted, it tells those in society that they have to accept what is told to them by the other HALF of the majority, and that their ideas are "antiquated". Just because people want something, doesn"t mean they get it. Gay marriage is harmful, and it shouldn"t be allowed. I am probably done with this debate. I will read your rebuttal but the will leave it up to the voters.

If homosexuality causes promiscuity, and promiscuity causes diseases, and diseases are bad, then address the diseases (or at least the promiscuity) rather than placing the blame on homosexuality! Promiscuous straight people aren't barred from being legally married to one partner; you have provided no proof for why a promiscuous gay person should not marry in a similar case.

Promiscuity takes place among people of all sexual orientations, not just gay people. If you don't want promiscuity to seep into children's minds, why not teach them that promiscuity is bad, rather than placing the blame on homosexuality? (Not all gay people are promiscuous, after all. That would be a sweeping generalization.)

All children will know is that a man and a man are married. Period. No insight on, "They're always sleeping with other people" or "Their marriage is a threat to the man-woman construct" or "They have loads of dirty diseases."

You state that the combinations of different kinds of marriages will confuse children. However, gay marriage need not be viewed as fundamentally "different" from straight marriage. They are, after all, a marriage, and that is how they read to a child's mind, in the same way that interracial and same-race marriage are simply viewed as marriages in the same respects.

"Just because people want something doesn't mean they should get it." Well, why not? In the same respect, just because some people (who aren't affected by the legislative decision) don't want something doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. Straight marriage is not affected one iota from gay marriages.Again, you are attacking homosexuality and the gay rights movement, but barely touching upon what would happen if already-existing gay couples could marry for shared legal benefits.

Neither side can decide whom burden of proof belongs to. Pro did not use the slippery slope fallacy at all actually. Slippery slope is assuming that one event will cause another unrelated event to happ say gay marriage leading to marrying animals leading to the apocalyptically downfall of society. But polygamy could occur wether gay marriage is accepted or not and could lead to the others acceptance. Pro posed legitimate arguments but since con arbitrarily decided to assign burden of proof did not argue anything and fails to prove their point. Might as well argue with a brick wall.

Also, I just noticed something--Pro's source for homosexual promiscuity is EXTREMELY biased, by Christian apologists who are clearly skewing statistics to prove a point. It seems highly doubtful that 28 percent of gay men have had over 1,000 partners. Unless he can somehow provide an unbiased source for that, I'm chucking that argument in the trash can.

Reasons for voting decision: Even without the fact that Con clearly made the better and more logical argument with far fewer fallacies, Pro forfeited the last three rounds.
So part of this vote's points are to counter IslamAhmidiyya.

Reasons for voting decision: I pretty much expected many things and Pro stated them as I expected em, and I agree with many of the things he stated. I don't really care about the FF towards the end, Pro made his point pretty clear IMO. Both however displayed proper spelling, grammar, and conduct. Good luck all.

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